La Paz, Bolivia is situated at 13,313 feet above sea level. In other words: 2.52 miles.
During our week-long Workaway stay in the region, Karen, our charming British flatmate, shed humorous insight into life at drastic heights above sea level, and the collective tally of random quirks grew as the days went by. What follows is our incredibly precise and highly scientific collection of odd happenings at lofty altitudes: Continue Reading…
Through connecting with a welcoming Workaway host family, we spent a little over a week living in Jupapina, Bolivia (about thirty minutes outside La Paz), earning room and board in exchange for flexing muscles of body and mind.
During our all-too-short time in Bolivia, we’ve been witness to unsettling destruction of natural resources: homes perched on unstable ground, bulldozers wreaking havoc on naturally stable terrain, and creation of geological chaos in the name of development.
What a treat to meet this inspiring family and engage in finding land management solutions.
Emma and Rolando with their charming kiddos: Bell and David…
Our hosts, Emma and Rolando, have dedicated their family and careers to bettering Bolivia. Emma relocated from England after spending time with international development agencies working in South America and Africa and is now involved in projects providing activities, meals, and education for children of working class parents unable to afford daycare and in community development projects benefitting indigenous people groups. Rolando ran against the political shoe-ins and won as an independent candidate for Mayor of nearby Mallasa, enacting many land preservation measures, developing public recreation lands, introducing art into public works projects, and advocating for the needs of the people, and later he was appointed and served as head of Social Services for all of La Paz.
Site: The Mendoza-Donlan Residence in Jupapina, Bolivia
The sky isn’t Photoshopped and the house really is that brilliant color. Light is amazing in Bolivia.
Emma and Rolando built their home four years ago in the beautiful Bolivian countryside, but their neighbors’ poor land management left them with an incredibly unstable property adjacent to their own. Their offer to purchase the land was accepted, and they’ve been working for the past few seasons to mitigate the damages and have plans to eventually develop the site as a tent and yurt campground serving La Paz.
As a landscape architect, I offered my skills to help with site master planning and Ted and I are both aided in filling holes, planting trees, cleaning out sand traps, and generally leaving the {future} campsite cleaner than we found it.
In one week’s time, we held client design meetings, worked out existing conditions and site analysis, spent time on concept and schematic designs, and reviewed design development options before committing to the final master plan. Continue Reading…
Many thanks to our traveling friends Chris and Tawny at Captain and Clark for nominating us to complete the A-Z Travel Questionnaire. (It’s been, um, a month since the invitation, but we’ve been doing some very difficult research to prepare answers for the questions…)
A: Age in which you first internationally traveled.
T: Mexico, age 14.
B: Mexico, age 3.
B: Best (foreign) beer and where.
T: Pliny the Elder in Portland, Oregon at the Horse Brass Pub. Okay, okay it’s not foreign, but it would be foreign to me right now since I’m in Chile.
B: Speight’s Pride of the South in New Zealand. Not because it’s delicious beer, but because it’s associated with such good memories.
C: Cuisine (favorite)
T: Anything pickled.
B: Locally sourced, lovingly made foods. I’m a self confessed Food Nerd.
D: Destinations (favorite) and why? Least favorite and why?
T: Favorite – Bolivia because it’s cheap and chill. Hawaii, cause it’s warm all night, too. Least Favorite – San Pedro de Atacama, Chile: Tourist Trap with a capital “T”
B: Favorite – New Zealand, South Island especially, but the country as a whole is tops: friendly people, beautiful scenery, and terrific natural resource management. Least Favorite – I’m in too good of a mood to pick one right now.
Beautiful Beech Forests in New Zealand – Bethany’s Favorite Country
E: Event you experienced that made you say “wow”
T: Seeing Machu Picchu from the Sun Gate at dawn.
B: Seeing scenes from my college computer desktop come to life in front of my eyes as I explored Klondike Corner in the Waimakariri Valley in Arthur’s Pass National Park, Canterbury, New Zealand. Continue Reading…
Today, my best friend Ted turns 30. The following is an excerpt from his in “Happy Birthday to Me: A 30 year Man ifesto (of sorts)”
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly Meaningless! Everything is meaningless.” What does man gain from all his labor at which he toils under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever.
Today I am 30.
I don’t feel 30, or even 29. I still feel like a child. When will I feel like a man? I’m not sure if I will ever feel like a man, or be one.
When I officially became a man (the first time at 18), I was in the darkest place of my life. Depression has a way of making you feel like you’ve experienced everything before, even if you haven’t. So there was nothing new under the sun. And still isn’t.
Traveling the world should feel exhilarating, like new lifetimes folded within new lifetimes, transformative.
And some days it is.
And most days I walk a knife’s edge between the vast love of God and the vast chasm of loneliness that seeks to engulf me with despair.
Is it better to have God in hand? Or be constantly desperate to merely catch a glimpse of him from day to day (for fear that I will die if I don’t)?
I’m not sure what I expected to find here, across the globe, that I didn’t find at home. Something better? Or more of the same?
Nevermind.
I care about so much less than I did when I was younger. By less, I mean a smaller number of things overall. But at the same time I care much more for those smaller number of things.
And so at age 30, I will take a moment to share my thoughts on some of those things with you.
the Bigger love
I feel safer than ever before — safer because I know Love just a little better — safer because there is something Bigger pressing up against my being.
Around the world, travelers everywhere are seeking good things: adventure, excitement, meaning, purpose, a good time, spirituality, the right kind of power, each other, place. With all their hearts they are seeking something Bigger than themselves.
Some are content with what they find. And some are driven to keep looking. Bethany and I are no different. We are committed to Jesus and his church, and yet, like every other traveler, we are seeking all of the same thrills, something Bigger. Not bigger than Jesus, mind you. But bigger than our thoughts about Jesus. And so we are on the same journey, not necessarily headed in the same direction, but seeking essentially the same thing. I have great respect for our fellow travelers. It’s a courageous endeavor…
Continue Reading at emoti:i.
Happy, happy, happy birthday, to the “nicest boy I ever met” (-Bethany’s journal, age 15)
Thank you for being my traveling partner, my life companion, and a true example of faith, hope, and love. Life is so rich with you in it!
About half way through our stay in Bolivia, I took up the invitation to attend a Women Who W{h}ine get together in La Paz. Each month, marvelous ladies of the city (expats and locals working for NGOs, designers and artisans running their own businesses, World Bank employees, and tour company owners) bring a bottle of something delicious and spend an evening of drink and discussion in the company of other interesting minds.
In that spirit, here is our own whine and wine take on Bolivia:
WHINE: Border Crossings, Long-Haul Transportation, Stormwater Management, and Loopholes for Transgenic Crops
To make our exit from Peru, we bussed from Cusco to Puno (complete with overnight stay in sketch-city-hostel) and then followed the lake shore of Titicaca toward the border crossing with Bolivia. As Americans, we forked over $135 each in U.S. Dollars to satisfy the Bolivian government, and receive our entry visas. Continue Reading…
“Roberts had grown so rich, he wanted to retire. He took me to his cabin and he told me his secret. ‘I am not the Dread Pirate Roberts’ he said. ‘My name is Ryan; I inherited the ship from the previous Dread Pirate Roberts, just as you will inherit it from me. The man I inherited it from is not the real Dread Pirate Roberts either. His name was Cummerbund. The real Roberts has been retired 15 years and living like a king in Patagonia.’”
I’m only slightly embarrassed to admit that my fascination with this crazy region at the ends of the earth began with a little line from the Princess Bride. Little did I know the first time I watched it (while home sick from summer camp), that all these years later, I’d be flying to the tip of South America to explore a place that’s captivated my imagination for so long.
Since we flew down to Punta Arenas on my birthday, Ted gave me the window seat (aww….), and I spent blissful hours watching the world of volcanoes, lakes, glaciers, and mountains pass beneath our wings. Take a peek, and enjoy the view!
Departing the hot desert of northern Chile…
Active Volcanoes
Beautiful islands on decent into Puerto Montt
Snow-capped Beauties
I have a thing for setting the scene with music. It’s a good soundtrack, I promise…
Enormous Glaciers!
The tip of the world, across the Straight of Magellan from Tierra del Fuego.
Yes, I’m officially geeking out. Best. Birthday. Ever.
Tomorrow, Ted and I leave bright and early to begin a five day, four night adventure on the “W” Track in Torres del Paine National Park. Gratefully, the area has re-opened to trekkers after the enormous forest fire that began on December 27th consumed more than 50,000 acres in the south and eastern portions of the park.
While we’re away from the computer this week, I’ll leave you with a few tidbits and pre-scheduled posts. Can’t wait to share the photos and stories that this coming week is bound to supply!
Today, I turn 28, and we fly to Patagonia. (Ahhhhhhh!!)
Tuesday, Ted (self-proclaimed “Mr. Indoorsy”) continues to be my hero, turning 30 in the rustic wilderness of Chile’s Torres del Paine National Park. Continue Reading…
We arrived at Machu Picchu via Inca Trail, explored the ruins on foot, then returned for a second day to climb Huayna Picchu and examine the site from an alternate perspective. Like many humbling places on the planet, the entire setting cannot be justly captured on film or photo; the three dimensional relationships are too difficult to represent in 2D. After visiting the ancient site in person, I’m still truly in awe. The following are images and thoughts from day two…(and then I’ll get off my Machu Picchu kick, I promise!)
Yes, we watched documentaries, read books, flipped through photographers’ collections, and fantasized about wandering the ancient terraces in person, but nothing truly prepared us to see Machu Picchu in the flesh (or in the stone and land, as it were).
After trekking for days and viewing other once-alive-and-now-as-shadow shelters and outposts along the way, I wondered: What makes this ancient site beat with energy all these centuries later?
As a landscape architect, I am called to consider relationships between natural systems, material elements, and humans who dwell in artfully crafted spaces.
While the layout and planning and masonry walls and terraces are masterfully executed, the deeply responsive situation within the natural setting elevates the ruins from impressive to profound.
Imagine: without Huayna Picchu looming in the background, would the world so quickly recognize the iconic image of the ancient city?
It is not simply the marvel of the stones, it is the glorious context of the design that makes Machu Picchu shine. Continue Reading…
Do you know the secret of western Oregon’s beauty? The rain.
We natives either love to hate it or love to brag about our webbed feet, but more than that, we love to enjoy the sweeping vistas of indigenous green and the rainbow of ornamental plants that grow effortlessly up and down the Willamette Valley.
When Ted and I booked our Inca Trail journey for Peru’s rainy season, we were well-prepared with waterproof pants and jackets. What we weren’t prepared for was the surprise of beautiful wildlife growing lush along the trek. It makes perfect sense, though.
I only wish I’d had enough forethought to geek out and carry a field guide to Peruvian flora.
Instead, I captured photos of favorites for a future self-imposed research assignment.
This collection is dedicated to my design collaborator and fellow Oregonian, Gavin Younie of Outdoor Scenery Design. Enjoy the plants, my friend! I was thinking of you all the way…
The last scramble along the Inca Trail to reach the Sun Gate fell into the utterly epic category. Up by 3:20am, packed bags, quick breakfast, squished along the bench at the fast-forming passport control line. We waited until the last six kilometers of trail opened at 5:20am, then bolted. It felt nothing short of silly to be so rushed, but the pressure of sunrise and the crowds of loud Argentinians following hot on our heals kept us in rapid forward motion.
The reward?
A spectacular circular rainbow at the top and the first glimpse of long awaited Machu Picchu…
